Should victims of online reputation attacks and online bullying report to the police?

Victims of online reputational attacks and online bullying should take their cases to Superior Court rather than report them to the police.

In a recent court case in which a hospital administrator became the first man in the UK to be jailed for harassing a woman through blogging, authorities sent a strong message to all those who mistakenly believe that the Internet It is a lawless land where bullying, harassment, bullying, defamation and blackmail are fair game and have proven that online bullying will not be tolerated in our society.

In a case that was heard by a Manchester Court of First Instance, a 38-year-old man was allegedly continuously attacking his female victim using no fewer than 35 website blogs in which he repeatedly insulted her, causing her discomfort and harm. your reputation. The man also used emails to harass his victims, as well as social media sites like Facebook.

It is not at all surprising that authorities took 18 months before the man was finally incarcerated. By then, his victim must have been completely destroyed mentally and emotionally. His confidence must have been shattered and his trust in people would have been replaced by cynicism and weariness. If this hate campaign had been carried out offline, I have no doubt that the authorities would have acted much faster to stop it.

When the offender was imprisoned, he had already appeared in court on several occasions. On one occasion, after admitting to the harassment, he was ordered to refrain from mentioning his victim’s name on any website. Again, it appears that it took some time before this very limited court order was issued and even longer before the violations were resolved.

It is highly likely that if this had been a case of domestic bullying, where more traditional bullying methods were being used, the victim would have been relieved of their pain much, much earlier. It appears that the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Magistrates Courts are not yet ready to deal effectively with these types of online harassment cases. However, civil courts act much faster in response to online harassment cases, and court orders are granted in days rather than months and years. Victims of online harassment should exercise caution in taking their cases to Superior Court, where attorneys can obtain a much more comprehensive court order on their behalf within 48 hours. Victims of online bullying don’t need to suffer for that long before the bullying stops.

Despite the fact that he was imprisoned, a large number of the defamatory blogs that the criminal had created against his victim still remain active and are visible to everyone. A suitably prepared Superior court injunction would have insured that blogs and websites were removed by Internet service providers and that, once granted such an injunction, it could last a lifetime, preventing anyone from participating in the publication of material prohibited by the court order.

During his online harassment campaign, the offender bragged about being so adept at IT that he could create and manipulate blogs about his victim faster than they could delete them.

It is not unusual for IT-trained individuals to blackmail their victims with threats to destroy their victims’ reputations unless certain demands are met. Until now, the police appear not to have recognized the fact that this form of blackmail is a criminal offense, mainly due to ignorance and lack of resources. These types of threats must be taken very seriously and the perpetrators of such online threats must be informed about the civil and criminal implications of their actions.